


Happy Together

by blueboxesandtrafficcones



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: But still idiots, F/M, Gen, Loveable idiots, Pete's World, because they're idiots, but think the other isn't, introspective, slightly angsty, they're both happy, time lapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueboxesandtrafficcones/pseuds/blueboxesandtrafficcones
Summary: They're happy.Really.They just don't know it.In which the Metacrisis and Rose realizes that sometimes they need words to communicate properly.  It only took them a decade.





	Happy Together

They don’t talk about it often.

They talk, all the time, sometimes even about important things, but they don’t talk about that.  Him.  How he can to be; what happened to Donna, to the rest of their friends after getting dropped off.  The full Time Lord.

Occasionally, one will bring it up.  The conversations are usually short though, neither wanting to dwell on the could-have-beens.

That’s during the day.

During the night hours, when the sky is dark and they lie on the roof of the mansion, admiring the stars, he’ll talk.  He’ll tell her things he always dreamed but never thought he’d actually get to share.

He blames the loquaciousness on being part-Donna.  Rose is kind enough to pretend to believe him.

At first, he talks about his travels.  His time with Donna, and Martha.  Sarah Jane.  They’re always positive stories; or at least, they don’t end in personal tragedy.

As time passes, and he adjusts to his new universe, to his new existence, he starts telling the other stories.  The bad ones.  1912.  The Master.  Midnight.  Jenny.

He talks about UNIT a lot, about the Brigadier and his time exiled on Earth.  He tells her if she thinks he’s difficult now, she should be glad to have missed that version of him.

(She tells him he can’t be worse than he was at the beginning, in leather and jeans.  She tells him she’d still love him even then.)

The years pass.  The TARDIS grows, eventually able to travel through time and space.  Sometimes he’ll tell stories as they sit in the doorway, looking out over galaxies and stars, supernovas and shooting stars.  (They’re not really shooting stars, Rose, it’s a meteoroid burning up as it enters the atmosphere.)  (Shut up, Doctor, and make a wish.)

But the truth is, he finds it easier to share lying side by side on that mansion roof.  He doesn’t understand why – shouldn’t he feel more comfortable in their TARDIS?  Still, the stories come more readily on the roof of a house than the middle of the universe.

He doesn’t talk about his family, about his parents, his childhood, his children, until that number (and her belly) starts to grow.

It’s not long after they find out about their coming addition that she asks.  It takes him a few days, but eventually he starts to open up about that part of his history.  He tells her of his wife, and how unhappy he was.  He talks about their children, and his regrets about not being more involved in their lives (not, of course, that it was by choice).  How he tried to make up for it with Susan; how he lost in her in the end too.

(Selfishly, she’s glad to know she’s not the only one he’s so coldly abandoned).

It’s years later, when the baby’s sick and the children are screaming and the house is a mess and they’re snapping at each other that he realizes the truth.

He’s stormed off after their latest argument, and is sitting on the roof, in their spot, feeling guilty for leaving her alone with the kids but too much of a coward (always a coward) to go back, to apologize.

They both said some awful things, and he knows he was more in the wrong, but as much as he loves speaking he absolutely loathes talking.

Deep down, he’s always terrified that a serious conversation about their relationship is going to end with her saying either _This isn’t working, I don’t think we should be together_ or, worse yet, _I wish I’d chosen the other one_.

So he hides.  And he waits.  Logically, he knows his actions can only hurt their relationship, but a millennia of habit and a childhood of coldness and distance always stops him.

In his heart, he knows (believes) they’re happy.  That when Rose smiles at him, it’s the genuine article, that she means it when she says she loves him.

But if he waits, if she comes to him, that means she still wants him.  He’s still welcome.  If he gives in, if he goes back, he’s afraid she’ll feel pressured to stay.  To keep him.  (He knows it doesn’t make sense, really, but he’s crippled by the fear that she’s not as happy as he is.  That she’s settling for him.)

“I’m sorry.”  She appears out of nowhere, blanket draped around her like a shaw, two mugs of hot chocolate in her hands.  She holds one out to him, and he takes it, before offering his hand to help her down.  She sits with a groan, stretching her legs out in front of her and looking up at the sky turning to dusk.

“No, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean it, Rose, honestly.  I just…”  He replies immediately, though he’s more frustrated than her when he trails off, unable to explain.

“Not about the fight.”  She tells him, looking out towards where she knows London is.  “I meant about being here.”

“What?”  He’s honestly confused.

“Here, in this universe.  I know you’re not happy, not really.  That you wish you’d been the one to stay Time Lord and the other was here to live this life.  I’m doing my best to keep it from overwhelming you, but sometimes it’s hard, you know?”  She glances down at her mug now, turning it in her hands.  “I’m just grateful that you’ve been here, that you’re trying.  I know it’s not what you really wanted, but-”

“No.”  He interrupts her, seeing the past decade suddenly through a new light, like a sunbeam illuminating a stained glass window.  “I’ve never been happier.  I thought _you_ were the one unhappy, who was wishing I was him.”

She stares up at him, astonished.  “You are?”

He nods vigorously.  “Are you?”

“Incredibly!  I love you so much, I love our family and our _life_ so much.  It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.  I have you, I have the TARDIS, I have our children, irritating as they can be at times.”

“Oh, Rose.  Love, you and those kids… you have no idea what they mean to me.  I mean, honestly, they scare the daylights out of me, the fear of losing them, or you, but still – darling, I’ve never been happier in all my existence.  The closest is when Susan and I were traveling together, but even then – well, that was centuries ago.”

They sat there, smiling at each other like idiots.  Somehow, the fact that this conversation was only occurring after a decade and three children (four, including the TARDIS, which they absolutely did), seemed fitting.

They never had done anything in order.

After all, they’d fallen in love before even learning the other’s name.


End file.
